Head First
by Thunder and Blue
Summary: In which Katara is a weepy drunk and Zuko is somehow the responsible one here. -One-shot/Zutara/M for some smuttiness-


A/N: We're coming up on summer, I'm almost done with my first year of grad school, I have one paper, two exams, and two assignments due in the next week so _of course_ the only think I could work on this weekend was this random one-shot. Hope you all enjoy!

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Once the battle is over, Zuko has been healed, Azula has been hauled away, and Katara has been reassured that Zuko is fine, yes really, _yes_ he's sure, he's fine, honestly, Katara summons his servants to his room and demands five bottles of "anything that'll get me really drunk really fast." The servants, who have seen three different Fire Lords in power in just as many days blink tiredly at her and ask her preferred accompaniment. She chooses guava juice

Zuko, who has spent the past week as a refugee, a traitor to the crown, an insurgent, and the ruler of a quarter of the entire world, takes the bottle when it's offered to him and gulps down enough to make his eyes water. Katara swigs from her bottle and chases it with juice. "Thank you," he says after a long, not-uncomfortable silence. "For helping me against Azula. You didn't have to." She sighs his name, climbs to her feet, and crosses the room to stand before him, her arms crossed over her chest and her bottle dangling loosely from her fingertips. She's still dressed in the robes she battled his sister in in (singed around the hem, torn around the collar, coated in dust and mud) and she's favoring her right leg. After a moment, she collapses next to him on the cushions, steadying herself with her hand pressed low on his stomach (just below his newest scar). She pulls away quickly and clinks her bottle against his.

"Shut up," she says. "And drink."

Zuko obeys because he's spent who knows how many weeks doing everything he can to get Katara to even tolerate his presence. _This_ is probably the least she could ask of him.

Over the next several hours, they empty three of the bottles of spiced rum (Katara dips well into Zuko's share), an entire bag of fire flakes (they send for them after half of the first bottle is gone), three platters of dumplings (the fire flakes run out and really it's dinner time anyway), and several pitchers of water (Zuko insists that they hydrate and Katara mocks him mercilessly for it). Zuko never specifically asks _why_ they are drinking themselves into oblivion, but the rambling way that she regales him with story after story of the South Pole makes him think she's having some sort of I-almost-died-ending-a-century-long-war-that-altered-the-course-of-history-and-destroyed-everything-I-love type existential crisis. Which is fair. Zuko resolves to let her have her breakdown and spends most of the evening adding juice to her drinks when she isn't looking.

"I need to take a…" she frowns, "A… you know!" She is laying on the floor with her feet propped up against the wall and her hair fanned out around her like a halo. Zuko snorts and sets another glass of water next to her head. "It's a…" She waves her hand and an orb wobbles out of the glass, swirls midair in front of Zuko's face, and then shoots into his eyes. "A bath!" she exclaims. Zuko sputters and wipes his face with the hem of his shirt. When he looks up, she has already shrugged out of her robe and has her leggings halfway down her thighs. Zuko's brain short-circuits momentarily and he spends half a minute watching the way her legs tense as she works the garment over her knees— and then he comes to his senses and slaps his hands over his eyes so hard that he sees stars.

"Katara!" he yelps.

"Don't just stand there!" she scolds. There's shuffling and shifting and she tugs on the hem of his robes. "Help me take off my clothes!" Zuko's eye twitches (something else twitches too, but he refuses to acknowledge _that_ ).

"Can we—" his voice cracks pitifully and he swallows. "Katara, can we maybe just keep our clothes on?" Katara pauses in the midst of fighting her feet free from her leggings and peers at him.

"You want me to take a _bath_ with my _clothes on_?" She gives him a look that would peel paint from the walls if she weren't also upside down in her underwear, tangled in her own clothes. Zuko tugs on his collar and fixes his eyes on the ceiling.

"Well, it's just, you know, maybe you could, um, take a bath in your, um underwear? Like… like you do at the beach?" Just like at the beach. She's not showing any more skin than he'd see on Ember Island or than he's seen when she trains with Aang. This is fine. This is totally normal. Zuko can deal with this.

Katara gives a long suffering sigh. "Whatever, Zuko," she says, "If it'll get you to help me, I'll pretend we're at the beach." Her voice says plainly that she is sure that he is an idiot, even as she begins to tug with her teeth at the material caught around her ankles. Zuko swallows again and drops to his knees beside her. He sets one hand on her knee to still her kicking, and slides the other down the length of her calf, working the legging over one foot, then the other. He's touched her dozens of times since joining the team, knocking her sideways when it looks like she's about to die or squeezing her shoulder when it looks like she might cry. He's never touched her like this, though, never had time to notice the incredible suppleness of her skin. She stills, and for a moment there's a look in her eyes that Zuko can't decipher. But then the look is gone, she scrambles to her feet and dashes into his bathroom.

Zuko knocks his head against the wall as the sound of splashing water filters into the room. And then there's the sound of something falling to the floor and Zuko is the one scrambling to his feet to make sure Master Katara, who defeated Fire Lord Azula on the day of Sozin's comet, hasn't slipped and cracked her head and died in her underwear on his bathroom floor.

When he bursts into the bathroom, there are an assortment of bottles scattered across the floor, a puddle of something thick and fragrant is dripping from the side of the tub, and Katara is huddle down in the quickly overfilling tub. Zuko swears, turns the tap off, and starts to tell her that she's officially cut off— but he stops. Her head is tilted back to rest against the tub's edge and the torchlight flickers, casting warm shadows over the dusk of her skin. She is _beautiful_.

Zuko turns away.

"If I leave you in here alone, how likely are you to drown?" he asks as he crouches down and sits with his back pressed against the tiles. The torture will probably be easier to bear if he isn't looking directly at her. Katara snorts, but doesn't answer. For a while, the only sound is the gentle trickle of the water.

"Zuko?" Her voice is suddenly small.

"Yeah?"

"What do you think it's like?"

He tilts his head to look at her from the corner of his eye. She is staring straight ahead, fingers moving slowly over the surface of the water.

"What?"

"To be dead." There's a soft rush and she hugs her knees to her chest. "What do you think it's like?"

There are, of course, a thousand answers to this, but none that feel particularly appropriate. Zuko's face flushes.

"Spirits, Katara, I don't— what kind of question is that anyway?" he snaps, pinching the bridge of his nose. The beginning of a massive headache is blooming behind his eyes and he suddenly wishes that he had let Azula roast him. "Why would you even want to—"

She makes a soft, sniffling sound that sends him whipping around to face her despite himself. She is scowling at her toes, wiping clumsily at her eyes.

"Are you _crying_?" he demands. Katara glares.

" _No!_ " She claps her hands over her face. Zuko opens his mouth to demand that she stop crying at once, but then he closes it with a snap and shoves a clean cloth into her hands instead.

"That's it," he says, climbing to her feet. He takes hold of her forearm firmly and helps her stand. She grumbles, but does not argue. "Bath time is over." He wraps a towel around her shoulders, careful not to notice the way the water has turned her white cotton underwear completely translucent. She wrinkles her nose at him and wobbles as she starts to climb out of the tub. Zuko sighs, scooping her into his arms. "I knew waterbenders were trouble," he mumbles to himself and Katara snorts, laying her cheek against his shoulder.

"Put me down," she demands and she snuggles deeper into his embrace and he carries her out of the bathroom, through the sitting room and into his bedroom. "Grab the rum!" Zuko rolls his eyes so hard he briefly wonders if he can break them.

"You lost the right to order me around when I became Fire Lord and you started crying in my bathtub. You're drunk."

"I am n—" He sets her on her feet next to his bed and she sways, scrambling to take hold of the front of Zuko's robes. "So what if I am?" Zuko cracks a smile despite himself and places a finger in the center of her forehead, pushing her back. She falls back and sits down hard on the bed, glaring.

"As the only person here in their right mind, I'm going to go ahead and declare the rum portion of the evening officially over." He pulls an old sleeping robe from the wardrobe next to the bed and helps her push her arms through the sleeves. The hugeness of the garment makes her look even tinier and more fragile than usual. Zuko hesitates, then traces a fingertip across her cheek, tucking her hair back behind her ear. She reaches up to catch his hand in hers with an accuracy that startles him.

Suddenly, she is giving him that _look_ again, quiet, far away, and intense. She presses his captured hand against her cheek, her eyes flutter closed, and an expression skitters across her face, something that stops Zuko's breath. Too hopeful to be heartbreak, too fearful to be love— all it does is remind him of that helpless moment he spent watching Azula's lightening arching towards her heart. He steps into her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. She presses her face against his chest and hugs him back, breathing shakily against his new scar. Suddenly, he is the one blinking back tears. "I'm glad you aren't dead," he whispers into the blackness of the room. Her arms tighten around him, but she doesn't answer. He clears his throat and steps out of her embrace. "Everyone else will be here tomorrow." The words slam something shut between them. She lets him help her underneath the covers. "Goodnight, Katara." He practically runs from the room.

Once the door is shut behind him, he strips off his shirt, snatches an extra blanket from a closet and collapses onto the cushions in the sitting room, steadfastly turning his thoughts away from the way moonlit shadows played out over the angles and planes of her face.

It was Toph who first accused Zuko of being in love with Katara. At the time, Zuko had ignored the comment, half because while Katara and Suki had weird cravings and were slightly irritable around new moons, Toph tended towards fits of unchecked malice (that were best endured and not challenged) and half because _of course_ Zuko loved Katara, anyone with two eyes, a heart, and a functioning dick would love Katara. But loving Katara meant nothing when they were all going to die at the end of the summer anyway.

But now the end of the summer is here and Zuko is alive thanks to the half naked, fully drunk waterbender in his bed. The implication of that is far too big to grapple with at the moment, though. Zuko makes himself sleep instead.

He isn't sure exactly how long he sleeps, but it is well before sunrise when he is awoken by cool hands on his chest. At first, her touch weaves its way into his dream, just another side of his ever-present yearning. But then she sniffs and something cool drips against his neck and he knows that this is real. He would never dream of a Katara with tears in her eyes.

"Katara? What…?" She is on her knees next to him with a hand pressed against his chest, over his heart. Her other hand covers her mouth. His mind feels thick and slow and he's still not quite convinced that this isn't a dream, but he manages to close his hand around hers. A shudder goes through her and a thin whimper makes it past her hand. "What are you doing?" he murmurs, his thumb stroking idly over her wrist. She shakes her head slightly and makes that _sound_ again. Her whole body trembles. Zuko reaches up with his other hand and touches the swell of her cheek. "What's wrong?"

Something in her snaps and she dives for him, her arms winding around his neck, her face buried in the crook of his neck. She is _sobbing_ , her entire body curling up against him. Zuko catches her instinctively and spends a panicked moment unsure of how to react. But then he feels her trembling, feels the desperate way she is clutching at him, and he sits up, knees coming up on either side of her, and tucks her more securely beneath his chin. One hand goes to her hair while the other strokes up and down her back.

"Shh," he murmurs, because that is what his mother used to say when he couldn't stop crying. "Just breathe." He realizes that she is saying something, whispering it over and over against the skin of his neck.

"Could've died," she whimpers and tightens her grip. "Could've _died_." Zuko's heart pounds and he tightens his hold on her. "You can't die, Zuko," she sobs, holding him so tightly that her nails bite into his skin. "You just… you just _can't_. And you almost did. If I had been slower, if I… if I hadn't been strong enough…"

"Katara…"

"She was aiming for _me_. It was coming right at me and you just… why did you do that? Why would you do that?"

"Katara."

"You can't do things like that. It doesn't matter if I die. I'm not a prince or the Avatar or some noble. I'm nobody. But you— people need you! I need you! I—"

He kisses her. Softly. Once. Twice. Because he can hardly bear to hear her say anything else about a world in which she is not the sun and the moon and all the stars in the sky. So he kisses her, cradling her face in both of his hands, brushing away her tears with his thumbs. And she kisses him back, lips trembling against his, fingers twining in his hair.

"Nobody?" he whispers against her lips, kisses her jaw, kisses her ear. "Katara…" his voice breaks as he struggles to find words big enough to fit his entire heart. "You are _everything_."

She pulls away and looks at him with wide, blue eyes. Her gaze is a thawing glacier, a spring rain on parched earth. She melts into him, slowly this time, attaching her mouth to his. He sinks back into the cushions and she shifts so that her knees are on either side of his hips. He is suddenly painfully aware that she is still in her underwear underneath the robe.

"You're drunk," he groans. Her hips are rocking slightly, little undulations that send the blood rushing away from his brain. She shakes her head, mouth moving from his lips, over his jaw, to a spot just below his ear that makes his fingers tighten on her hips.

"I know what I'm doing," she breathes. "Please." She takes hold of one of his hands, guiding it to her chest. Zuko groans again and kneads her breast gently, his thumb rolling over her stiff peaks, pinching softly through her wraps. Her hips are rocking more purposefully now, each burst of friction sending shots of pleasure tingling up his spine. Her breathing trembles and she arches into his hand.

"You can't die," she mumbles, breath hitching. "Promise. You can't leave me." Zuko rolls them and pulls down the top of her bindings, pressing hot, slow kisses to her breasts. He grind his hips more firmly against hers and she gasps, hooking a knee up over his hip. He kisses his way back up to her mouth, nibbles softly on her lower lip.

"I'm here," he says, "I'm alive." Her hips shift and she moans aloud. "I won't ever leave you." He focuses on that spot, the one that makes her whimper, rolling his hips in short quick bursts. "Say it, Katara," he groans and attaches his mouth to her neck.

"You're alive," she pants, hand sliding down his back to cradle his ass, urging him faster. "You're alive, you're—" she breaks off with a choked gasp, moans his name in a way that makes him dizzy with pleasure. Her body goes stiff and then she relaxes, her fingers slow and lethargic against his biceps. He eases his movements, breathing hard against the nape of her neck, then rolls off of her, settling down on the cushions by her side. She reaches over and takes his hand, intertwining their fingers. He tugs and she rolls closer, cuddling up to his side.

"What about—"

"I'm fine," he tells her, kissing the top of her head. "In the morning." She chuckles and wraps her arms around his waist. "Sleep."

"Zuko?"

He tilts his head to look at her, watching the moonlight on her hair and the curl of her fingers against his chest.

"I love you."

He traces his thumb over her cheek and can almost see a thousand nights unfolding before his eyes, full of the feel of her cool skin against his.

"I love you too."

The next morning, the servants seem completely unfazed by every aspect of the scene they find in the young Fire Lord's rooms, from the heap of empty rum bottles piled in a corner to Katara herself, who is curled up in Zuko's lap, cradling her head while he reads through a set of scrolls. They collect the bottle as quietly as possible (though Katara still winces at every clink) and drop twin mugs of something hot and strong-smelling alongside breakfast. When they leave, Katara crosses the room to grab their tea, shoves his into his hands, and climbs stiffly back into his embrace. Zuko sips his tea, still shifting through the documents.

"Remind me," he says mildly, "what was it you said last night about drinking water and delicate flowers?"

Katara gulps her tea, wincing. "Shut up,"she says, burying her face in the crook of his neck "and drink."


End file.
